The Grammy Award-nominated and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-inducted rock group KISS took the stage on Dec. 2, 2023, at Madison Square Garden for the last stop of the band’s End of the Road World Tour — marking the group’s final performance in its five-decade history.
And while the band’s legacy will continue on via digital avatars for virtual stage shows, slated to start up in 2027, the live music still lives on — particularly with founding co-member, bassist and co-lead vocalist Gene Simmons, who has been playing out with his own band since last April.
On May 3, he and his group — the Gene Simmons Band — will make its debut at the Beaver Dam Amphitheater, kicking off the venue’s 2025 First United Bank & Trust Concert Series.
It’s been just over two years since Simmons, who turned 75 in August, was in front of the 20,000-person crowd in New York City as “The Demon” alongside fellow founding member Paul Stanley, longtime drummer Eric Singer and the group’s final lead singer and guitarist Tommy Thayer — a moment Simmons described being “a combination” of “satisfaction, pride and, of course, bittersweet” feelings.
“… Imagine you’re climbing the unclimbable mountain to get to the top of Mount Olympus. When you get up there, you’re beaten up by the weather, the air is thin up there …,” Simmons said. “… Even though we won in following our own rules and so on — … not being part of important musical genres that came and went … — there’s nothing I would have changed, I have to say.
“You have to know when it’s time to say thank you,” Simmons said.
Born in Haifa, Israel, Simmons — birth name Chaim Witz — legally emigrated to the United States with his mother Flora Klein, a Holocaust survivor, in 1958 at the age of 8, settling in the borough of Queens in New York City.
Shortly after, Simmons, who did not speak “a word of English,” became exposed to what was playing on the radio and became infatuated with the sounds of Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Fats Domino.
“I couldn’t stop listening (to) that music,” he said. “Not so much the pop music; it was fine. I enjoyed it, but instantly forgettable like a sugar high. … It didn’t stick to your ribs.”
Simmons, who went on to speak at Berry’s funeral in April 2017, recalls being emotional that day in reminiscing about hearing Berry’s music during his youth.